Tag Archives: Continuing Medical Education

I have almost completed the “sweep” of our fall Annual District Meetings. Once again, I’m impressed with the dedication of my ob–gyn colleagues across the United States. These meetings are proving to be educational, collegial, and administrative. I say ”administrative” because we discuss the “goings on” of each region, including the political factors impacting each of our states, the public health dilemmas we face, and the effect of changing practice patterns. I look forward to these information exchanges and to sharing insights with my colleagues about the forces influencing our practices and our patients.

For me, the educational component of the ADMs has been most exciting. In a time when physicians are increasingly getting their CME online, the ADM courses provide more than just the course information. They provide perspective and insight from the experts in the field in real time. At the District I, III, and IV ADM in Puerto Rico, Jeffrey F. Peipert, MD, PhD, argued for a paradigm shift in our approach to contraception in his presentation about the St. Louis CHOICE Project. With wider use of LARC (long-acting reversible contraception), we can significantly reduce our nation’s high rate of unplanned pregnancies and abortions and start to see healthier pregnancies. Dr. Peipert provided abundant pearls about how easy LARC is to provide to our patients and how it can improve reproductive health outcomes. We can all use this valuable information in our practices.

At the same ADM, Louis J. Guillette, PhD, gave a rousing talk about the impact of the environment on reproductive health. As it turns out, we both did research at the University of Colorado at almost the same time and even shared members of our thesis teams. Who would guess that our paths would cross 35 years later around shared interests? Dr. Guillette’s message: Increase awareness among our patients—without alarming them—about the vast amount of research implicating environmental factors on our health. And, Deborah A. Driscoll, MD, helped to simplify for us the complex world of genetic testing and familial cancers. Thanks to her, genomic microarray-based technologies are now part of our vocabulary.

Increasingly, physicians are earning more of their CME online. The reality is we are all crunched for time and online CME opportunities are valuable options. But online courses don’t allow for that in-person learning that is so often accompanied by practice pearls. Nor do they provide an opportunity for us to have personal, individual conversations with our colleagues which are so important. I hope that you’ll make plans to attend your next ADM…it’s definitely worth your time.

Remember, registration for the 2014 Annual Clinical Meeting in Chicago opens November 5, just a few weeks away!

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